Disk media used in hard drives may include a substrate that is plated with a material such as nickel or cobalt. Subsequent to plating, a disk medium is usually polished using chemical mechanical polishing process, which exposes the surface of the disk medium to a number of different contaminants. The containments may be the result of the polish slurry, polish residue, media manufacturing equipment, or the media manufacturing environment. For instance, polishing slurry has a tendency to bond to the surface of disk media making contamination particles from the slurry difficult to remove. If contamination particles are not removed from the surface of a plated and polished disk medium, the operation and performance of a hard drive incorporating the disk medium may be negatively impacted.
Accordingly, disk manufacturers regularly utilize detergents and cleaning processes to remove contaminants from the surface of disk media before proceeding with subsequent manufacturing processes (e.g., sputter process). Unfortunately, use of certain cleaning processes and detergents are known to leave behind blisters and water stains on the surface of disk media. These blisters and water stains can result in major glide loss over the surface of a disk medium.